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We had our biannual seminar with our esteemed sensei from Seattle. I always enjoy those seminars because I learn so much in such a short period of time from him. He is very good at describing suttleties that make or break a Ki test, or greatly improve a technique.

I got to spend a lot of time being uke for him as everyone else was injured in some way (not Aikido injuries). That was great! Sensei must have told him I have began brekfalls because he snuck in a few on me.

Some of the memorable pointers were the change I needed to make in my ushuro ukeme to standing position. I failed a Ki test to stand. I was then told to use my abs more to place my one point forward enough to stand rather than extending my arms to gain momentum to stand. I made the change with some success, but I really need to practice that one more. He had me make a suttle (and I mean suttle) elbow, shoulder drop to make me more stable when offering my hand to uke. I was astounded at the difference such a suttle change made in my stability. He showed us two other versions of happo waza. One was a tenkan version, the other was a sword cut with knife hand version. The tenkan version realy takes some getting used to. We worked on the eight direction sword kata.

I only managed to get two days of four that he was teaching. I wish I could have gone to the other two, but because Christmas dinner was at my place I was behind the eight ball to prepare the house for the 15 people that will be coming over. I don't know when he's going back to Seattle. If I'm lucky maybe he might run another class after Christmas before he goes. I was hoping to cover some of the techniques I'll need to do for my 3rd kyu test.